While serious news from Harrisburg and Washington, D.C., dominated the front page of The Pittsburgh Gazette on April 15, 1869, inside pages featured lighter fare.

Tales of a financial scam, purloined cash and a rocky romance were among the local stories competing for readers' attention that morning.

"Mr. Perry C. Dean, a farmer, was swindled out of four hundred dollars yesterday," the Gazette reported. Dean and his wife, on their way home to Wisconsin, had boarded a cross-state train in Philadelphia. "Just before the train started[,] a genteel looking young man stepped into the car and took a seat directly in front of the pair. The train moved on and the young man's tongue commenced to move also. ... Being an exceedingly agreeable conversationalist, he succeeded in winning the confidence of his two auditors long before the train reached Pittsburgh."

The man called himself J.B. Austin.

When the trio arrived at Pittsburgh's Union Depot, "stranger No. 2, merchant of Pittsburgh, stepped up and politely requested Mr. Austin to pay a little bill."

"Austin pulled out his pocket book, but found himself short of ready cash, having only a draft for three thousand four hundred dollars and six twenty dollar gold pieces."

"[A]fter some consultation, Dean, the farmer, was prevailed upon to loan his friend four hundred dollars to pay the bill, taking in exchange the draft and the gold pieces as security, both of which the supposed Pittsburgh merchant pronounced all right ... ."

Austin and the merchant then disappeared "for the purpose of getting the account perfectly squared."

Dean and his wife "waited for some time" before contacting the authorities, who "pronounced the affair a swindle."

The draft, which gave the bearer the right to collect the $4,300 at a bank in New York City, was a fake. "The supposed gold pieces were composed of a good quality of brass."

"The victim was swindled thus out of all his money, except twenty dollars. ... He has, now, a ... disregard for affable strangers," the story concluded.

Following a pattern that would be repeated by future generations of journalists, Gazette reporters made regular stops at courts and police stations in Pittsburgh and in Allegheny City, now the North Side.

In one case, rooming house operator Patrick Kearney found himself answering a theft charge before Allegheny Mayor Simon Drum. Kearney was accused of taking $10 from a letter sent to one of his former boarders. The amount in dispute was equal to about $160 today.

The unidentified tenant had disappeared, leaving an unpaid bill, the paper reported. "Soon after a letter was left at the boarding house for the missing man, which Kearney opened and found to contain thirty dollars."

After Kearney removed $10 and sent on the rest, his former tenant complained to police. Kearney explained at the hearing that he had been told that the letter would be sent with the money. "As he appeared to have no evil intent and expressed himself willing to refund the money, the Mayor dismissed the case."

A report on the first marriage in Allegheny County Criminal Court relieved "the dull monotony of trials and sentences."

Charles Burgess was accused of seducing Mary Jane Bagshaw. Both lived in Temperanceville, now part of Pittsburgh's West End. "[T]he indictment in the case set forth, with other alleged facts, that in the pursuance of the intimacy which had existed between them, a child, now living, was born."

"They had affection enough for each other, but Charles, like many other young men, felt that he could not well afford to make the honorable reparations due the fair and blushing Mary. But the law is a stubborn thing, and rather than go to jail, Charles agreed to ... enter into matrimony."

District Attorney Alfred L. Pearson dropped a charge of fornication and bastardy and a city alderman, E.S. Morrow, immediately performed the wedding.

"This was the first case of a wedding in open court in this County," according to the newspaper. "[A]nd Charles has received the first sentence for life ever imposed on any poor criminal by that Court."